Friday the 5^th marked my one-month anniversary with Buenos Aires, and I couldn’t be happier.  Vos sos mi unico cariño para siempre.

I want to make this a relatively short blog post so I’m going to make a list.

“Things I’m obsessed with” by Layla Halabian

1. Bañado de chocolate:  Yes.  A chocolate bath.  It’s the term the use here in the heladerias when they dip your helado in chocolate and freeze it so your helado is concealed within a chocolate fortress of wonder.  Is it intense?  You bet.  GO BIG OR GO HOME, SON.

2. The fact that most Argentine guys are the most DELIGHTFUL, ETHEREAL CREATURES IN EXISTENCE:  This is not an exaggeration.  They’re all so adorable that your first reaction is, “Oh my gosh, I want to SQUEEZE you!” My Spanish Professor (who I will not name because I feel like I talk about him around 20 hours per day), our tour guide at the ESMA, Pedro, and Emma and Phoebe’s host brother, Fermin, are currently my top three.  Fermin’s probably in second place because in addition to being absolutely adorable, he’s also extremely socially awkward and talked to Emma about how meat is very difficult to digest while we all walked back from the movies.  I LOVE WHEN ARGENTINES ARE ALIENS, IT’S SO REFRESHING!

3.  “Cheerleader” by Grizzly Bear and “Braille” by Regina Spektor:  Neither are relatively new songs, but they are old favorites that I rediscovered this past week and I have been listening to them NON-STOP.  If you don’t have either songs on your iTunes, I’m sorry to inform you, but you’ve been leading a sad, pathetic, half-life.  It’s okay, though, you have time to turn your life around.

4. Pablo Neruda’s poetry:  In an attempt to immerse myself more into speaking/thinking/breathing Castellaño (Argentine Spanish), I’ve been reading more in Spanish.  Then I read some Pablo Neruda and everything changed.  “Quiero hacer contigo lo que la primavera hace con los cerezos.”  That translates to “I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”  Um, excuse, did anyone else basically have a heart attack at how ABSOLUTELY STUNNING that single line is?  I feel like my heart grew 200 times in size.  GAHH.

5. Movies dubbed in Spanish: Today I watched Titanic en español (“Jack, quiero que me dibujes como tus chicas francesas” = LOL all over the place) and I just want to say that movies in Spanish are freaking INTENSE.  I was legitimately on the edge of the couch in pure terror because of how angrily the characters were yelling when they realized that the iceberg was going to hit their ship.  AHMIGAWD.  I had to change the channel to Harry Potter y el prisonero de Azkaban.  Ron getting dragged away by the Grim and the Whomping Willow going insane on Harry and Hermione proved to be more intense than all of Titantic!  Sirius Black speaking Spanish was petrifying!  LUPIN TURNING INTO A WEREWOLF WAS FRIGHTENING BEYOND ALL REASON WHEN THERE IS ANGRY SPANISH BEING SPOKEN!

6.  Babies/Chilluns:  Elementary schools in Buenos Aires began this week so each day as I walk to and from school I see the little Argentine niños going to school with their parents and I have to actively stop myself my running over to them and hugging them.  THEY’RE SO CUTE.  They all wear uniforms and have sandy blonde hair and blue or green eyes and it makes me want to pull an Angelina Jolie and adopt them all!  On top of all this, my cousin, Golnar, had her baby this week, which has only exponentially increased my love for children.  Congratulations, Golnar!  I’m going to swim across the Atlantic so I can squeeze little Lucas.

7. Skyping with my cat:  Yeah, I’m that person

Goodnight, planet Earth!